Trying times
It keeps hitting me that this coming election is the last one that matters. Actually, I felt that way last time. But this time the hour has gotten even later. But maybe it was always too late. When we play … Continue reading →
Category Archives: Liberty
Surprise, surprise: Iran deal hasn’t softened the hardliners
The NY Times observes: Anyone who hoped that Iran’s nuclear agreement with the United States and other powers portended a new era of openness with the West has been jolted with a series of increasingly rude awakenings over the past … Continue reading →
Programming the morals of the self-driving car
I knew that I didn’t like the idea of a self-driving car (that’s “self” as in “the car drives itself”). The moment I heard they were perfecting such an item, it gave me very serious pause. Maybe that’s because in … Continue reading →
Now, here’s a hypothetical
Commenter “Ackler” poses the following hypothetical: …[S]uppose that tomorrow Obama announced he was canceling the 2016 Election by executive order. Either he would stay in power indefinitely or he would voluntarily cede the Presidency to the anointed Hillary (or Biden, … Continue reading →
Swedish banks charge you for the privilege of letting them have your money
Is this the wave of the future?: Central bank policymakers had believed they had run out of room to support their respective economies, with their interest rates held close to the floor. …Cut rates too deeply, [they thought], and savers … Continue reading →
France’s Marine le Pen faces trial for hate speech
It was about nine years ago that it was first impressed on me how little France and most of Europe defends the right of freedom of speech, as compared to this country. The context of that learning was a libel … Continue reading →
This seems to be a key thought
From commenter “Eric”: The “LIV” is a conformist. To marshal the “LIV” to your agenda, set the zeitgeist to your agenda. The “LIV” will conform to it. Engineering the zeitgeist is an activist function. I would phrase it differently, but … Continue reading →
These evil British colonizers of Africa and the institution of slavery
So, why don’t our history books teach us much about this aspect of the history of slavery in Africa? Mine certainly didn’t touch on it at all, and in all the years since then, when I’ve about the evils of … Continue reading →
What does Kim Davis want?
In all the verbiage about Kim Davis’ refusal to issue marriage licenses to same sex couples and her subsequent jail sentence, there’s been a great deal of muddled thinking as well as a great many accusations. The best article I’ve … Continue reading →
Kim Davis: Christian believer or homophobe?
By now you’ve probably all read the story of Kim Davis: A federal judge ordered Kim Davis ”” the defiant Kentucky county clerk who has cited her Christian faith in refusing to issue marriage licenses to gay couples ”” to … Continue reading →
The end of religious freedom in the US
I agree with this article by David Harsanyi: Not only does the court now apparently hold the power to bore into the souls of shopkeeps to establish that their religious objections aren’t authentic, but it can also decide when their … Continue reading →
Alexander Hamilton: on Congress’ treaty power
From Federalist Paper #75 [emphasis mine]: However proper or safe it may be in governments where the executive magistrate is an hereditary monarch, to commit to him the entire power of making treaties, it would be utterly unsafe and improper … Continue reading →